Desmond Skirrow

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Desmond Skirrow (1923 [1] or 1924 [2] in Barry, South Wales [1] – 16 August 1976, Hove, England) was a British advertising executive and novelist.

Barry, Vale of Glamorgan Settlement in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales

Barry is a town in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, on the north coast of the Bristol Channel approximately 9 miles (14 km) south-southwest of Cardiff. Barry is a seaside resort, with attractions including several beaches the resurrected Barry Island Pleasure Park. According to Office for National Statistics 2016 estimate data, the population of Barry was 54,673, making it the third largest town in Wales, after Wrexham and Merthyr Tydfil.

South Wales Region of Wales

South Wales is the region of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, mid Wales to the north, and west Wales to the west. With an estimated population of around 2.2 million, which is almost three-quarters of the whole of Wales, Cardiff has approximately 400,000, Swansea has approximately 250,000 and Newport has 150,000. The region is loosely defined, but it is generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, extending westwards to include Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. In the western extent, from Swansea westwards, local people would probably recognise that they lived in both south Wales and west Wales. The Brecon Beacons national park covers about a third of South Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest British mountain south of Cadair Idris in Snowdonia.

Hove Town on the south coast of England, part of city of Brighton & Hove

Hove is a town in East Sussex, England, immediately west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a single conurbation with Brighton and some smaller towns and villages running along the coast. As part of local government reform, Brighton and Hove were merged, to form the borough of Brighton and Hove in 1997. In 2001, the new borough officially attained city status.

Contents

Writing career

In 1963 Skirrow met Alida Haskins, who showed him the maquette of Cowboy Kate & Other Stories by Sam Haskins, and he put words to the visual story devised by Sam and Alida. Alida introduced him to Sam's publisher, the Bodley Head in London, who went on to publish his thriller novels. Sam's next book, November Girl, was published in 1966 and Skirrow provided the text for the melancholic visual story.

Sam Haskins British photographer

Samuel Joseph Haskins, was a British photographer, born and raised in South Africa. He started his career in Johannesburg and moved to London in 1968. Haskins is best known for his contribution to in-camera image montage, and his books, Five Girls (book) (1962), Cowboy Kate (1964) and Haskins Posters (1973).

While working as an advertising executive in the mid-1960s Skirrow commuted daily from Brighton to London, and he wrote 1,000 words a day until he had a 70,000-word novel. [3] This was It Won't Get You Anywhere, the first of three spy novels about fictional British agent John Brock. Like his creator, Brock works in advertising in London, but is also a part-time agent for an undercover department run by The Fat Man. Penthouse magazine said that both Brock and Skirrow were likeable, soft-hearted and rather shy. [3] Skirrow denied that he and Brock had any similarity, noting that his hair was blonde and Brock's is black. [3] According to Brian Ash, Skirrow "resembled a latter-day Chesterton." [4] Ruth Martin, writing for Books & Bookmen, described Skirrow as "Tall, big, bearded and seemingly incapable of being serious for more than a few minutes at a time." [5]

<i>Penthouse</i> (magazine) erotic magazine

Penthouse is a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione. It combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, temporarily evolved into hardcore.

Brian Ash was a British writer, scientific journalist, and editor. Ash was best known for his bibliographies and reference books. In the 1970s he wrote several works on science fiction, including Faces of the Future, Who's Who in Science Fiction, and Who's Who in H.G Wells. He also was the editor of The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which contained chapter introductions from science fiction authors as well as articles on the themes of science fiction written by himself and others. The latter title was, in 1978, listed as one of the ALA Best Books for Young Adults. He was married once, and had two children.

G. K. Chesterton English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG, was an English writer, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, lay theologian, biographer, and literary and art critic. Chesterton is often referred to as the "prince of paradox". Time magazine has observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out."

Two sequels followed: I Was Following This Girl and I'm Trying to Give It Up, tough, irreverent, and witty. Punch called them "the Chandler formula, basically, but louder and funnier." Penthouse said "between the punch-ups and chases and killings paint a wildly amusing cynical-eye view of the glossy, hysterical world of advertising." [3]

Skirrow also wrote a children's book, The Case of The Silver Egg, televised as The Queen Street Gang, about the adventures of a group of boys tracking down a gang of villains. Books and Bookmen refers to an unpublished sequel. [6]

Skirrow's frequently anthologised poem [7] "Ode on a Grecian Urn Summarized" parodies John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn. First published in the New Statesman in 1960, [8] it appeared in the New Oxford Book of Light Verse edited by Kingsley Amis. [2] Vanderbilt University coined the term "Skirrowing" for a terse parody of a great poetic work.

John Keats English Romantic poet

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 25.

Ode on a Grecian Urn poem

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819 and published anonymously in the January 1820, Number 15, issue of the magazine Annals of the Fine Arts.

<i>New Statesman</i> British political and cultural magazine

The New Statesman is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was connected then with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members of the socialist Fabian Society, such as George Bernard Shaw who was a founding director. They had supported The New Age, a journal edited by A. R. Orage, but by 1912 that journal moved away editorially from supporting Fabian politics and women's suffrage.

BBC Radio 2 Woman's Hour serialised It Won't Get You Anywhere between 2 and 13 November 1970. [9]

Advertising and art career

After World War II Skirrow taught art in the countryside. [10] In 1953 or 1954 [10] he joined WS Crawford where he worked alongside Paul Peter Piech under Ashley Havinden.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Skirrow illustrated book jackets for the British publishers Heinemann and Secker & Warburg, including for Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud [ permanent dead link ], Max Shulman's Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, James A. Michener's Hawaii and William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich .

In 1962 David Bernstein, creative director at McCann Erickson, hired Skirrow and Robert Brownjohn as his deputy creative directors at its London office. Bernstein described Skirrow as "a craftsman". [11]

Skirrow was the Creative Director of major London advertising agency Masius Wynne-Williams, [12] [13] where his colleagues included novelist Christopher Wood and Murray Walker – Walker claims that he and Skirrow disliked each other intensely. [14]

Death

He died on 16 August 1976 at The Avenue Clinic in Hove [15] and was cremated at Downs Crematorium, Brighton, on 23 August 1976.

Bibliography

John Brock novels

Other novels

Other books

Jacket art for other authors

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 Dyment, Clifford (ed.). New Poems. London: Michael Joseph, 1954; pg. 178.
  2. 1 2 Amis, Kingsley. The New Oxford Book of English Light Verse. Oxford University Press, 1978; pg. 316
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Words". Penthouse (1967), Volume 2, Issues 6–12.
  4. ↑ Ash, Brian (1969). Tiger in Your Tank: The Anatomy of an Advertising Campaign. Cassell. p. 92. ISBN   0304933368.
  5. ↑ Porter, Ruth (1970). "Paperback Pointer". Books & Bookmen. 15: 91.
  6. ↑ '’Books and Bookmen'’. Volume 13 (1967) pg. 15.
  7. ↑ J. Paul Hunter; Alison Booth; Kelly J. Mays, eds. (2007). The Norton Introduction to Poetry (9th ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 400. ISBN   978-0-393-92857-0.
  8. ↑ New Statesman. 30 July 1960.
  9. ↑ '’The Bookseller'’. Issues 3380–3393 (1970) pg. 2116.
  10. 1 2 Nicholson, Geoffrey. "Two designers in Britain". Art & Industry. July 1956, Vol.61, pg. 22–27.
  11. ↑ King, Emily. Robert Brownjohn Sex and Typography: 1925–1970, Life and Work. Princeton Architectural Press, 2005; pg. 61.
  12. ↑ Standard Directory of Advertising Agencies. Issue 167. National Register Pub. Co., 1972; pg. 541.
  13. ↑ Kleinman, Philip. "Inside Every Adman...?". (21 December 1974) The Spectator. Volume 233, Issue 2. London: 1974; pg. 791.
  14. ↑ Walker, Murray. My Autobiography: Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken. CollinsWillow: 2002. ISBN   0007126964, 9780007126965.
  15. ↑ "Deaths". The Times (59819). London, England. 27 September 1976. p. 24.

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